Business as usual for Neumann in 4WD Qualifying

Team Durango’s Joern Neumann continued his reign as the master of 4WD buggy in Euro Offroad Series taking the opening two rounds of qualifying in Germany but the German had to work a lot harder for it than normal with series debutant Naoto Matsukura looking like he could be a serious treat to the European Champions undefeated winning streak.  An early mistake in Q1 by Neumann put Matsukura on the TQ pace but holding a comfortable margin the Japanese ace threw it away with errors on his final two laps.  In the second qualifier, the 6-times Japanese National Champion looked like an even more serious treat as he went the top of the timing screens on shear pace but again a mistake was to be his undoing.

Running a fresh set of the series’ controlled dBoots tyres in Q1, Neumann said his DEX410 was a little edgy and this is what led to his early mistake.  Lowering his ride height for Q2, he said the tyres where much better second time round but chasing his fifth consecutive 4WD win he admits that he has a real challenger this weekend in the 19-year-old who has already beaten him in 2WD buggy with a win in Leg 1 of the A-Main which was run earlier today.

Setting a new fastest lap of 19.856 in Q2, Matsukura has shown he has the pace to run with Neumann and the three time 1:12 World Champion doesn’t lack confidence in his own ability saying he wants to do the double this weekend.  Describing his buggy as a little difficult to drive for Q3 he will change to a harder shock set-up which he hopes will help eliminate some of his errors.

With this race marking Xray’s official EOS debut, factory driver Martin Bayer put in two solid qualifying runs despite having been twiddling his thumbs for much of the day as he is only racing 4WD Buggy.  The Czech ace managed the 6th fastest time in his first qualifying joking that after a long day of watching 2WD qualifying and the first round of finals it took him the first 4-minutes of the heat to get his head into gear again after yesterday’s practice.  Leaving the buggy pretty much unchanged for Q2, Bayer said his focus is on reducing the number of driver mistakes but improving his time and breaking into the 15 laps he said things are improving with every run.

4WD Buggy Q2 times
1. Jörn Neumann (DE) – Durango – 15/5:07.723
2. Dustin Evans (US) – TLR – 15/5:14.040
3. Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 15/5:14.113
4. Hupo Honigl (AT) – Durango – 15/5:14.275
5. Martin Bayer (CZ) – Xray – 15/5:20.793
6. Lee Martin (GB) – Tamiya – 15/5:23.457
7. Michal Orlowski (PL) – Durango – 14/5:03.279
8. Darren Bloomfield (GB) – TLR – 14/5:04.288
9. Oliver Scholz (DE) – Team C – 14/5:11.070
10.Oliver Speith (DE) – Durango – 14/5:12.185

4WD Buggy Q1 times
1. Jörn Neumann (DE) – Durango – 15/5:18.240
2. Naoto Matsukura (JP) – Yokomo – 15/5:20.720
3. Hupo Honigl (AT) – Durango – 14/5:01.908
4. Lee Martin (GB) – Tamiya – 14/5:04.511
5. Dustin Evans (US) – TLR – 14/5:07.326
6. Martin Bayer (CZ) – Xray – 14/5:07.592
7. Markus Metsch (DE) – – 14/5:09.391
8. Benni Groschel (DE) – Durango – 14/5:10.660
9. Oliver Speith (DE) – Durango – 14/5:12.506
10 Jiri Mara (CZ) – Xray – 14/5:14.429

Complete event results can be found here.

View our event image gallery here.